Persistence
by theredphoenix1
Summary: 24th May, 2018. Laura Hollis and her friends are finally graduating from their creepy university. Silas University. Laura knows she's going to miss this place.. But, for all the wrong reasons. Laura's asked Carmilla a million times to go out with her, but all that Carmilla has given her is rejection... And she's had perfectly logical reasons.
1. Chapter 1

24th May, 2018

Laura Eileen Hollis stood with her father, her robe and her hat gaining more justice by the small scroll that rested in her palms. Her eyes searching desperately for the flicker of black that had held her captive for the duration of all these four years.

A trio of gingers walk up to her. Their faces with expressions of happiness and excitement and perhaps, even relief to the fact that they had finally graduated from their creepy university. Silas University. The university where girls would go missing for a couple of days and then return to their dorm rooms with no memory or any idea whatsoever of what had happened to them. Where they had silly little turf wars with paintballs and anchovies, over which club would get to protect majority of the student body and where parties were filled with numbskulls getting hammered, when one year things went so out of hands that co-ed's started yapping in some gibberish donkey language, and yes, they had donkey ears coming out of their heads… But that was just a part of college, right?

Even if Laura Hollis had disagreed with that reasoning, she couldn't help but chuckle at the way her favourite person from these four years had described it. Her person who is so damn stubborn – just like her – and who is extremely strong and annoyingly logical. Her person, who with one look, has Laura Hollis weak and quivering in her knees, the woman who Laura Hollis knew, from a painfully long day back in her sophomore year, was meant to be with her.

"Frosh!" LaFontaine chirped with their arms wide open, enveloping Laura in a tight bear hug. "We're finally getting outta here!" They exclaimed causing their small gang and a bunch of people around them to chuckle. _Yes, it was a blessing that they were getting out of there. Alive._ Laura snapped out of her reverie of searching for her curly, raven haired, about an inch taller woman.

"Oh, come on LaF! We graduated today. You can finally stop calling me 'Frosh'." Laura said rubbing LaFontaine's arms while looking at Perry, expecting some kind of rescue from their favorite science nerd. "You'll always be Frosh to me Laura. That or the piniest pine." LaFontaine replied pulling away with a warm smile across their face. "I'll take Frosh, thanks." Laura huffed, moving on to hug Perry and exchanging their pleasantries. Laura turned and paused to stare at Danny. Her six feet two tall friend, whom Laura had a crush on from Day one. The feelings were always mutual, but not everything in life works out the way you want it to be. After a second of staring at each other, both the girls lips turned up in a slight smile and the next thing you know, is Laura throwing her arms around Danny's neck and Danny picking her up easily and holding her close. Both the women hiding their faces in each other's hair, reveling over the fact that even if a lot of days they fought, and were disappointed in each other or in themselves, at the end of the day, they had a bond so strong that nothing could stop both of them from confiding and trusting in each other.

"I still don't believe it when you both say that you're just friends." Sherman Hollis says, looking disbelievingly with a kind and gentle look in his eyes as Danny puts Laura back down on her heels. "Dad." Laura warns playfully to her father as Danny smiles genuinely. "It's not me who your daughter desires, Sir." Danny says teasingly while Laura goes red in the face and punches Danny on her arm to shut her up. The other two gingers listening on and understanding exactly what their tall friend meant by it and sharing a look.

Laura's father being just as oblivious as Laura makes a disapproving sound from the back of his throat and goes onto correcting the tall ginger on how many times he's told the kids to call him Sherman. Ever since the beginning of college, Laura's been tightly knit with the three gingers and Sherman Hollis knew from the day he met them, that they were like the children he could've had with his wife. That is, if his wife hadn't been tragically taken away by death.

On festive nights, he would wish that he could somehow pry apart the jaws of death to bring Laura's mother back so Laura could have the happy life that she so rightfully deserves. He just knew as much as he would do anything to give Laura the best, no God or Universe would turn time back around or change situations just because a frail little human wants his child to have her Mommy. He knew the universe was tough and downright evil at times, so he took it to him to make sure that no person or any force would ever dare to hurt his only child. His only reason left anymore to fill his lungs with life.

Perry and LaFontaine get busy with talking to Sherman about their plans for the evening and the party they're hosting for their whole class that just graduated along with them. Laura and Danny look meaningfully at the other trio with Laura feeling blessed and blissful whilst Danny understanding exactly the wavelength of emotions going through the smaller girl.

Suddenly, like Laura remembered something important; tore her eyes away from her folks and looked at Danny as if she was asking a million questions from her eyes while tugging at her forearm. Danny's questioning glance disappeared as quickly as it came on and her face reflected a kind smile. She looked around in the crowd, taking complete advantage of her inherited height and stopped when her eyes landed on the right face. Even if Danny sometimes wanted to punch the dark haired woman right in the face for being so callously sarcastic, she knew she couldn't hurt Laura in any way by hurting the laid back, intense woman that Laura was completely head over heels with since their sophomore year from a really painful and excruciating day. And Danny also knew that hitting an authority right in the face and breaking their bones is not going to gel well with her degree, especially if she herself wanted to get in the field of teaching college students.

Danny looked back at Laura to see a lost puppy dog look on her face. Danny nodded her head to the spot where the dark haired woman she searched for, stood. Laura followed her gaze and squinted her eyes, begging to the Gods above or the Universes that ruled the planets to let her eyes see her.

When Laura's eyes landed on the woman that she had been begging to see ever since the awarding ceremony and the marvelous speech that the woman had recited, her heart fluttered. She thanked the great Gods and Universes above that she had finally started believing in. If she could, she would've screamed 'Hallelujah!', but she didn't want people to think that she had a hemorrhaging or something and was turned into pod-people.

Instead, Laura Eileen Hollis took a deep breath, her eyes never leaving the beautiful, soulful woman, in fear that if she took her eyes away from her, she might lose her again. She patted Danny's still held forearm and muttered a 'Thank you' with more incoherent mutterings of how she'll be back.

"Don't do something stupid!" Danny's words floated in her head without really understanding what her tall friend meant. Laura was focused on one thing. The only thing that mattered to her anymore. She was like a vampire, who's only focus was the living being that would quench her undying thirst. She didn't feel her body anymore. It was like her body was a cage and her soul had finally escaped from the grasp of physicality. Her ears went numb and the only sound she could hear was the pumping of her heart and the feeling of her feet squishing the grass below her shoes. She pushed past other portals of living, perhaps, bumping into a couple of them, unapologetically.

When she was finally in close proximity of the woman, Laura so adored, she stopped about five feet from her. She stared at the beauty in front of her shamelessly. With awe and wonderment in Laura's eyes, she wondered how graceful and cat-like the object of her affection was. How even tugging her loose curl behind her ear made Laura question everything she knew about herself and about the infinite Universe.

Like another wish being granted from the great above, the parents and a couple of students ended their conversation with the raven haired beauty and walked away from her. When she went back to standing by herself, she folded her arms across her chest and her eyes idly wandered across the bunch of students and proud parents surrounding her. Her eyes, albeit with no emotion, held a fire that only made her irises even darker.

When her eyes finally landed on Laura, a flicker of some unknown deep emotion reflected in her eyes and it departed just as soon as it came. Age and past occurrences had taught the woman to be more in control of her messy emotions. It had taught her how if you let your feelings run haywire, you're bound to explode or maybe just fall flat on your face. That's what her mother had always tried to teach her too. If only she had listened to her mother…

The slight curl of her lips gave Laura the courage to move forward and diminish the five foot distance that lingered in the few moments of silence before their eyes held each other. Laura moved towards the woman who looked like a Greek Goddess with her perfect eyebrows and the sharpest jawline she'd ever laid her eyes on. Closing the distance between them, Laura opened her mouth to say something and a mumble jumble of random words spilled out of her mouth… Or that's what she thought.

The woman's eyebrows shot up so high that they almost touched her hairline. Laura still in a daze, wondered what had she said that raised a reaction like that in such a calm and collected woman. Shaking her head and trying to catch the words that would soon fall off from the woman's mouth, Laura shook herself off from her confusion. The numbness she had in the cage of her body disappearing and her soul returning to where it belonged. Her physical form gaining all of its senses back as she heard the deep, sultry voice of the woman standing in front of her. Her lips spilling her complete name out.

"Laura Eileen Hollis." The woman breathed, a small smile forming on her lips and voice. Laura heard her name as if she was hearing everything underwater. Everything was in slow motion up until this gorgeous woman spelled her name out and in a flash; everything was back to its normal pace. The sudden transition making her ears ring and her body lose colour.

4"I see you're still up to your wits to the point where you want me to lose my job, sit at home, drown myself in an ice cream tub that I will have to buy by selling one of my kidneys because I won't be getting pension anymore." She finishes with a smile still present on her face.

Laura's jaw drops wide open while her eyes look clueless. The colour red rushing back to her cheeks as she puts her brain in overdrive wondering what the hell had she just said.

"You asked me out…. Again." The woman answered for Laura's poor brain which was still trying so hard to wrap itself around what was happening.

"Oh…." Laura trails off. If Danny would've witnessed this encounter, she would've smacked her face so hard; the whole Universe would have imploded.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

 _19_ _th_ _August, 2014._

"First day of college!" Laura almost shrieked, jolting awake and sitting up straight in her bed. The sudden action making her blood rush throughout her body.

"I'm going to give myself a heart attack one of these days." Laura muttered to herself, holding her right palm across her chest, taking deep breaths to calm her system.

"But don't give me one!" A female voice complained with alarm in her voice.

Laura's head snapped to her left with a scream erupting from her mouth. Her body like lightening, grabbing the nearest weapon from her bed, standing up in a fighting stance.

"A spatula, really?" The woman asked in pure disbelief her jaw dropping a bit. A bottle of nail polish shattered on the floor right by her feet. Her eyes fell to it and a noise of displeasure passed from her lips.

"That was my second favourite shade!" The woman whined, her eyes switching between her half-done nails and the shattered nail polish bottle now lying in pieces.

Laura's alarmed state now relaxing a bit as she felt bad for scaring the much taller woman and causing chaos.

"Let me help you clean it up!" Laura offered without thinking too much, assuming this unknown woman must obviously be her roommate, (RIGHT?) or else she clearly wouldn't been sitting in some really short jeans shorts and a baby pink t-shirt that said, Betty (?) and applying paint over her nails.

"Oh, no. Don't worry about it. I could easily take care of it by myself, besides I wouldn't want you hurting your feet with possible glass shards on your first day of college." The woman winked as Laura had taken a step to pick the mess up, raising both of her hands to distance Laura from hurting herself. A genuine teasing smile spread across the taller woman's face.

"Isn't it your first day of college too?" Laura asked in fake suspicion, squinting her eyes so the woman could know what was going through Laura's mind.

The woman (Whose name better be Betty) tilted her head in mock shock when she realized what Laura was thinking.

"Yes it is!" Betty exclaimed, a chuckle escaping from her mouth, both the ladies sharing a grin.

"I'm really sorry about that." Laura said sheepishly, pointing the spatula at the broken container on the floor. She looked at the spatula that she still held in confusion and tossed it back on the bed, looking even more embarrassed.

"Yeah, it's okay. I could always get another one. It was just a second favourite anyway." The taller blonde replied, caring no longer about what had happened to one of her favourite shades.

"So, you must be my roommate, uh… Elizabeth Speesh… Uh, … Elizabeth! With the really hard last name." Laura said extending her hand and face palming herself with the other hand.

"I'm Laura Hollis. I'm super awkward and nerdy." A maniacal chuckle fell from her mouth.

"Yes. Elizabeth 'Spielsdorf'." Elizabeth stressed on her last name, spelling it as slowly as possible for Laura to understand whilst trying real hard not to laugh in her face.

"But you can just call me Betty." Betty added with a huge grin on her face, shaking her hand firmly with Laura.

"Apparently…" Laura trailed off, looking at her t-shirt.

"Yep." Betty replied, nodding down at her pink t-shirt.

"That's a good grasp." Laura expressed after dropping Betty's hand. Betty chuckled.

"You're funny Hollis. So, what time is your first class?" Betty enquired, bending towards the floor to start cleaning the mess.

Laura's eyes flew to her digital wrist watch in panic. The previous commotion had caused her to forget the main reason why she woke up in a panic. Her body relaxed when the beaming red numbers informed her that she still had an hour to start with her new life. As dramatic and hilarious that would've sounded to anyone else, it was pretty serious to Laura. For her whole life, Laura had to live under the protection of Papa Hollis, who even if Laura didn't reply to the first call of her name, would come rushing to her room with a can of 'day of the week' bear spray that he would specially make, in one hand and a baseball bat in another. Laura did resent her father for baby monitoring her till the age of eleven or the other times when he would scare away potential friends and lovers, causing Laura to always be some sort of loner, but she always knew her father had the best intentions at hand for his daughter and didn't want her to get hurt. So when Laura stressed on the term of 'a new life', she meant she was going to enjoy the freedom and independence as much as she could and gain any sort of experience she needed to. She knew she had to make the most of it. (Safely, of course)

"I have about an hour." Laura replied with an excited smile on her face. She looked back at the floor and saw the fuchsia colour no longer on the floor. She looked at Betty's side of the room and found that everything was just as organized as Laura's side. She thanked the forces for blessing her with an organized and clean roommate.

"Ah, same. We could walk with each other to classes…. I guess." Betty said with a considerate smile on her face, sitting down on her bed again.

"Definitely" Laura nodded with a grin.

"I'm going to start getting ready." Laura informed pointing at the bathroom. The taller woman nodded.

An hour was about to pass and Laura and Betty was already striding away from their dorm building up to their classes.

"I actually wanted to go to Princeton." Betty admitted quietly.

"What made you not go?" Laura asked curiously.

"Well, majorly I fucked it up by partying too much and my great grandmother wanted me to join here at Silas because she wanted the women of the family to get their education from here, because yes, she graduated from here and yes, I know, apparently people in my family live too long or maybe they reproduce too young. She died last year though at a ripe age of 90… I will be joining Princeton next year though. Yeah, I'll have to work a little extra hard and I wouldn't even be disappointing my great gran a lot either. I mean, I would be spending a year here. So..." Betty shrugged. Laura chuckled at the way Betty answered all of her questions with just looking at her face.

"Anyway, I guess we have to part ways here. I'll see you after an 18 hour work day." Laura chirped way too happily.

"You're very funny, Hollis." Betty shook her head chuckling at the tiny woman.

"Yeah yeah, Speeshh… Spee.. Speedork!" Laura huffed exasperated. Betty just stared at her for a moment and walked away towards her classes. Laura worried for a moment that she might have offended the taller blonde but then she heard loud muffled laughter coming from the woman and her shoulders shaking uncontrollably while she climbed up the stairs. Laura sighed in relief and then started walking towards her class. The moment she took a turn, she bumped into someone.

An apology slipped from Laura's mouth and she felt something wet on her blouse, she inspected it and realized it was a really thick red substance.

"Oh, dammit! Mattie is gonna kill me." A deep voice exclaimed. Laura looked at the owner of the voice and saw a woman about her own height wearing a black blazer with a white shirt beneath and matching black trousers. Her white shirt was ruined with the same red liquid that she was holding in her hands. She looked closely on the bags and realized they were none other than blood bags. ' _I was expecting this day to go better!'_ Laura thought.

The woman was juggling the innumerable amount of blood bags she was holding, trying not to spill more blood from the bag that was torn. When she was sure no more bags were going to spill their contents out, she looked up at Laura, annoyed.

"Kids these days." She muttered, glaring at Laura and walking out of her path.

"Excuse me!" Laura called out angrily. The woman ignored her and kept walking away from her at a really brisk pace. Laura had to run after the woman to catch up to her, when she did; she turned the woman around harshly by the shoulder.

"What the?!" The woman stumbled; she looked up at her assaulter and flared her nostrils.

"What do you want, Cupcake?" The woman spat angrily.

"Oh, I don't know? AN APOLOGY MAYBE?!" Laura yelled. Her voice echoing in the very empty halls of the building.

"An apolo…. Yeah, right." The woman scoffed, clearly very amused, walking away from Laura.

"Oh, you're gonna apologize!" Laura walked in front of the lady, pointing towards her blood stained blouse.

The woman's eyes fell on her blouse and a smirk grew on her face, her eyebrow raised as she clearly tried to ogle at Laura's chest.

"Hey!" Laura snapped her fingers in front of her face. Her face puffed up in anger and disgust.

"What?" The woman asked, looking bored and disinterested.

"You still have to apologize! But now, you have to apologize for two things! First, for spilling all this blood on me, which is making me look like some kinda vampire who chomped down on freshmen, which is funny because I'm a freshman myself! And second, for staring at me like a goddamn perv!"

"And what are you going to do if I don't oblige?" The woman challenged.

"Then….." Laura looked around clueless.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." She nodded smugly and tried to move past Laura.

"Then I'm going to do this!" Before the woman could move past Laura, she snatched the torn blood bag from her and pointed it at her.

"Oh, you don't have the guts Cupcake." The woman answered with complete confidence.

"Think I won't?" Laura countered with just as much as confidence.

"Be my guest. But I hope you realize I'm holding four more bags. That's four times the destruction." The woman warned.

 _24_ _th_ _May, 2018_

 _(Present day)_

 _"_ _You asked me out…. Again."_

 _"_ _Oh…."_

A bunch of parents and students walked past them, waving and smiling at the older woman. She returned a tight lipped smile, her eyes losing the genuineness they held a couple of seconds ago. Her guard rose back up. Laura noticed.

"Carm…" Laura called out in a small voice, reaching forward to hold her forearm.

The woman flinched at the brush of her fingertips, moving away from Laura.

"It's Professor Karnstein for you, Hollis." She replied coldly.

"I graduated today 'Professor Karnstein', I think I get privileges from this day forward. Privileges, that especially give me the right to call you by your name and maybe even ask you out on a date." Laura beamed.

"As long as we're on these grounds Cupcake, it's Professor Karnstein for you. No bargains. You should've really read your student handbook thoroughly." The Professor shrugged.

"Yes, the student handbook which I totally read and did not use as a doorstop." Laura admitted meekly, wrinkling her nose.

A smile broke out on the older woman's face, her guard slipping away from her controlled grasp. Laura made situations easier for the woman. Things always seemed to turn out for the better whenever the short blonde was involved, even when most of the times Laura was the reason for all the chaos that occurred. But then, the professor couldn't really blame the younger woman for all the colourful events that took place whenever she was around. Specifically the time when she threw half a bag of blood on her just because the professor thought that she didn't have it in her.

 _Someone just as stubborn and fearless as her had stepped up to her cocky nature._

 _She did burst the rest of the bags on Laura's head though._

 _That was a magical day…_

But then of course, she judged her too soon, just like everyone else. She did move past the point when she realized that perhaps they were not as different as she had thought her to be. She obviously couldn't blame the inquisitive nature of the possibly really successful future young journalist that was standing in front of her, making her feel the happiness that she felt when she, herself, was younger and thought she had everything figured out. Laura made her feel that probably everything in her life had finally made sense, that she had gone through everything just so she could reach this point in her life where she could stare at the younger, nerdy and caring woman and then finally rest in peace, not wanting any other material or physical necessities that life could offer to her.

The older woman took Laura's hand in hers and started pulling her away from the grounds. Laura looked at her in confusion, a small smile still playing on her lips but continued to follow the woman. She wondered what was going through her head. Maybe the older woman was dragging her into some dark abandoned corner so they could have some sexy times. The only problem was, Carmilla had obviously never done a thing like that to Laura. She really needed to stop masturbating so much whilst imagining such crass things. Carmilla is a woman who never lost control over such petty issues and she was way too old fashioned to put sex on the forefront when she is obviously very much into the younger woman.

 _She has to be…_

Maybe Laura was overthinking too much. Maybe Carmilla was just dragging her around so they could measure the ground! Her brain was probably still not functional… How could it be anyway? She was with Carmilla. People would call her crazy if she used logic around this woman.

Carmilla on the other hand, just dragged the woman by her palm and tried to avoid other people from looking at where they were going. She was still not sure if she wanted to do this or not, her mind rushing back to times when she used to look at Laura and the only thought that would come up in her mind was enveloping the smaller woman in a tight embrace, tracing her nails over her back, smelling her vanilla perfume and never letting her go.

 _She had always been old fashioned._

 _'_ _Would she ever deserve something good?' Carmilla wondered. 'Would she want herself to be happy?'_

It was never that Carmilla was lovesick. Love was something that came by and left in the brunette's life. _It always left._ Love stayed for years, months and most of the times, only nights. _But not until…_

Carmilla blinked the thought away. 6 years had gone away. She didn't have to dwell on past mistakes. She knew better than to spit in the eye of something old enough to think it's a god. Her eyes welled up anyway. Her grasp on Laura's hand grew tighter. Laura moved closer to her, sensing the change in her and held onto her arm.

Why was she thinking about love in the first place? It was pointless and hopeless. Love always left. Love made empty promises and kept her waiting. Love stayed in her sheets and left in the shadows, not leaving even a single trace when the light shone through her curtains. Love even said it loved her, but snatched her modesty and bled her till it was satisfied. Even when love stayed, some evil unknown entity or maybe just her fucked up fate managed to snatch it away from her. Kill everything that ever really mattered to her. Even if this time, it was her fault, she knew. Love. Always. Left.

 _Laura didn't._

Tears spilled out of her eyes like the first rain shower of the year. She wasn't doing this for love. She wasn't going to name this love. She wasn't going to fuck this up. This was pretty much all that she had anymore. She was going to make this work.

They walked until they were out of their campus. The bustling of the outside world made Carmilla's shoulders feel ten times lighter. They walked to a relatively quieter place. The brunette let the blonde's arm go. She turned towards her, tears still flowing from her eyes. Carmilla sniffled, trying to blink back tears but they kept falling out, she tried to strengthen her voice.

 _"_ _Ask me now." She croaked lowly._

 _"_ _What?" Laura's voice quivered._


End file.
